Google Keep vs Obsidian
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Google Keep
Capture, edit, and share notes and lists across all your devices. Organize with labels and colors, and set time or location-based reminders. Collaborate with others in real-time for shared tasks.
- Capture notes, lists, photos, and audio
- Organize with labels and colors
- Set time and location-based reminders
- Collaborate on notes and lists
- Transcribe voice memos
- Extract text from images
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• Capture, edit, share, and collaborate on your notes on any device, anywhere. • Add notes, lists, photos, and audio to Keep. • Organize your notes with labels and colors. • Set and forget. Get reminded about a note at the right time or place. • Record a voice memo and have it automatically transcribed. • Grab the text from an image to help you quickly find that note again through search. WHEN AND WHERE YOU NEED IT Need to remember to pick up some groceries? Set a location-based reminder to pull up your grocery list right when you get to the store. Need to finish a to-do? Set a time-based reminder to make sure you never miss a thing. SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS Next time you go to the store, share your shopping list on Keep and watch as items get checked off in real time. No need for text messages back and forth. Get things done together, faster. FIND WHAT YOU NEED, FAST Quickly filter and search for notes by color and other attributes like lists with the label “To-dos”, audio notes with reminders or just see shared notes. Find what you're looking for even faster, and let Keep do the remembering for you. ALWAYS WITHIN REACH Keep works on your phone, tablet and computer. Everything you add to Keep syncs across your devices so your important stuff is always with you. Try Google Keep on the web at http://keep.google.com and find it in the Chrome Web Store at http://g.co/keepinchrome.
Obsidian
Organize your thoughts and ideas with a powerful knowledge base that utilizes local Markdown files. This app acts as your personal second brain, accessible on your mobile device for seamless note-taking and idea connection.
- Local Markdown file storage
- Customizable toolbar
- Graph view for connections
- Community plugins
- Themes
- iCloud sync
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Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. It is a second brain, for you, forever. Now available on the go for iOS! Features include: - Customizable toolbar - Pull down quick actions - Graph view - Community plugins - Themes - Sidebar pinning for tablet - iCloud vaults
Screenshots
Verdict
Google Keep and Obsidian both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 62% of Obsidian's written reviews are positive against 42% of Google Keep's. Obsidian also leads on iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.0). Google Keep's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks) and ratings volume (29K vs 2.7K). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Google Keep against 4.5 for Obsidian. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Google Keep has 29K ratings behind it against 2.7K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 42% of Google Keep's written reviews are positive against 62% of Obsidian's.
Google Keep ships an update weekly, Obsidian every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Google Keep | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (29K ratings) — better | 4.5 (2.7K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 42.4% of reviews | 62.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 29K — better | 2.7K |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #76 — better | #131 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 210 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dynalist Inc. | |
Customer experience
Google Keep
Obsidian
User reviews
Google Keep
From 29K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Lean and efficient
- 👍 Minimalistic and easy to use
- 🤝 Good for collaboration
- 💡 Useful for note-taking and lists
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and crashes frequently
- 🔄 Sync issues and data loss
- 🕰️ Slow performance and lag
- 📱 Limited functionality on mobile
- 🔒 Lack of security features
Obsidian
From 2.7K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Powerful features
- 👍 Customizable and flexible
- 🔒 Secure and private
- 💡 Innovative note-taking approach
- 🚀 Smooth mobile experience
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues and unreliable iCloud integration
- 🔋 Slow startup and performance issues on mobile
- 👎 Steep learning curve for new users
- 👎 Limited sorting and organization options
- 👎 Lack of WYSIWYG editing on mobile
Bugs and requests
Google Keep
Reported bugs
4 issues- Notes randomly duplicating or disappearing
- Checkboxes not working as expected
- Keyboard issues and text input problems
- Refresh failures and connectivity problems
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for widgets
- Improve text formatting options
- Introduce folder/category organization
- Enable password protection for notes
- Enhance search and sorting capabilities
Obsidian
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sync issues leading to data loss
- Freezing and crashing on mobile devices
- Editing bugs and text input issues
Requested features
5 requests- Improved sorting and organization options
- WYSIWYG editing on mobile
- Better integration with other cloud storage services
- More intuitive onboarding process for new users
- Native mobile widgets and share sheet integration
In-app purchases
Google Keep
No in-app purchases
Obsidian
No in-app purchases







